The present invention pertains to food production and, more particularly, to delumping edible material during food production so as to consistently produce appropriately sized pieces of edible material.
Certain edible materials, such as granola, tend to form clumps during production. While some clumping may be desirable, it is important to ensure that the clumps are not so large as to be difficult to eat. Also, clumps of sufficient size can be difficult to process. Accordingly, machines known as delumpers are sometimes used to break up clumps of edible material. Although delumpers do succeed in this task, delumpers also generate a substantial amount of fine particles from the edible material. This too may be undesirable for certain food products. Generally, the goal is for all the edible material produced to fall within a desired size range, i.e., for the delumper to produce consistently sized clumps of edible material.
Prior art delumpers tend to shatter rather than cleave edible material. This contributes to fine particle generation and results in less consistent clump sizing. For purposes of the present invention, “cleaving” means splitting or severing a piece of edible material, especially along a natural line or grain, so that two pieces of edible material are formed, with one on either side of the plane of contact. In contrast, “shattering” means breaking up a piece of edible material, not only along the plane of contact but along a plurality of planes, so that three or more pieces are formed. Of course, in practice, some amount of both cleaving and shattering is likely to occur in a given delumper. Recognizing this, there is still a need in the art for a delumper where a majority of the delumping occurs via cleaving rather than shattering, thereby producing clumps of a more consistent size and minimizing the generation of fine particles, i.e., maximizing the number of pieces at the largest size without going over an upper limit and while minimizing the number of smaller pieces.